Näituse avamine: “Armastusega Eestisse: Kahe põlvkonna reisikiri”

The exhibition follows the story of three generations of Estonian-Canadian women—Helen Rammo (née Haljaste), Marina Intson (née Rammo), and Camille Intson—tracing their ancestors’ footsteps from Estonia to Canada and back again in the aftermath of the 1940-1991 Soviet occupation.

This story begins with the personal archive and records of Helen Rammo (Haljaste), a celebrated Estonian colonel’s daughter born in 1921 in Nõmme before escaping Estonia in 1942 and resettling permanently in Canada in 1949. Following her death in 2013, Helen’s daughter and granddaughter Marina and Camille found themselves in possession of boxes of photographs, scrapbooks, documents, and other priceless ephemera from the interwar period in Estonia onward. In the decade following, they would return to these records as a guide and road map to piece together forgotten parts of family history, hoping to one day visit each of the places meticulously documented in Helen’s scrapbooks. In the summer of 2024, this dream was finally realized as Marina and Camille visited Estonia for the first time to embark on a cross-country road trip, retracing their family’s movements and re-creating Helen’s old photographs from the archive. This exhibit is the story of that journey.

The first section of this exhibit documents Marina and Camille’s road trip through Estonia, reflecting on the familial research and documentation processes that bridge Helen’s archive with the present day. The second section features mixed media collages and photographs created by mother and daughter, giving viewers added insight into the process of archival interpretation and into the resilient intergenerational maternal bond at the backbone of this project. In collaboration with VEMU Estonian Museum of Canada, this project emphasizes the gendered labour of memory work and the importance of intergenerational connection and communication to the Estonian-Canadian diaspora.

In Estonian and English / Free event with donations welcomed.